Your Most Radical Creative Tool: Doing Nothing.

Perspectives of a Visual Thinker

Iryna Molodecky – September 26, 2025

In a world that rewards constant motion, pausing can feel like the most radical act of creativity.

My recent eye surgery gifted me with a bold invitation: to step back from work and the busyness of life. For a driven Do-er, it was not an easy task to embrace simply "Be-ing". As I recovered by the river, suspended in my yoga chair, I felt the rhythm of life moving effortlessly through me. In those moments, I rediscovered the richness of “Be-ing” found only in the spaces between each breath, each thought, each moment. 

The Art of "Doing Nothing"

Across cultures, this practice has many names: Niksen, il dolce far niente, Wuwei. At its heart, it’s about allowing yourself to be idle with purpose — to release striving, let the mind wander, and reconnect with presence – your inner Self.

Alan Watts reminds us that by letting go of constant effort, we allow the natural flow of existence to carry us where we truly need to be. Doing nothing, he says, is the courage to trust life, to dance with the flow of things. A tree is not in a hurry to grow, the wave does not panic trying to rush to shore, a cat will sit still and content for hours simply observing without agenda. It’s a reminder that the pause is not wasted time. It's where aliveness gathers.

The Pause offers:

• Overall well-being – reducing stress, restoring balance, and connecting you back to your essence.

• Improved focus— opening awareness beyond activity or worry; the gap between tasks is not empty, but full of presence.

• Increased Creativity — Fresh ideas don’t come from forcing, they arrive in stillness, in the space you create for them. Doing is necessary to express creativity, but being — the pause — is profoundly creative. 

Creativity is not born in the noise of constant thought, but in the stillness between them. In the pause, you open to the eternal stream of creation itself — and from there, your song, your art, your words are given shape.

This Month’s Cards: 3 Practical Ways to Micro-Pause

Here are three simple Pause practices from my Visual Thinking Strategies Card Deck

1. Unplug and Hear the Silence: Transition between tasks with silence. Let your mind wander. Doodle circles or lines for one minute.

2. Breathe:  Before starting a creative activity, pause to notice your breath. Deepen it. Draw its rhythm for one minute.

3. Inner Awareness: During routine activities (walking, waiting in line, brushing teeth), check in. What do you notice inside and outside of yourself? Record it with colors and shapes.

The Visual Toolkit for Creative Problem-Solving

The Pause cards are part of a larger Visual Toolkit for Creative Problem Solving—designed to help individuals and teams unlock fresh insight and direction. This category focuses on ‘incubation time’— building mindfulness, awareness, and reflection while boosting visual creative thinking.

You can select a Pause card anytime in your process. Let intuition guide you. The aim is not to push for answers, but to rest, wander, and allow insights to emerge naturally.

Explore the Pause cards — and the full toolkit — now available on my website izmvisuals.com/shop

Coming Soon: Visualize It to Solve It!

THE ART OF APPLYING SIMPLE VISUAL TOOLS TO SOLVE COMPLEX PROBLEMS

FREE online workshops on Visual Problem-Solving using the Visual Thinking Strategies Card Deck. These sessions are for educators and creatives ready to deepen their process and achieve results that feel aligned and meaningful. Stay tuned...

If you want to teach people a new way of thinking,don't bother trying to teach them.Instead give them a tool, the use of which will lead to new ways of thinking. Buckminster Fuller

Thank you for being on this journey with me. Let’s pause and visualize meaningful change together.